Tag Archives: manhattan

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Detail, Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine

September 12, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Exterior detail of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York City.

After traveling uptown to the general area of Columbia University for a breakfast visit to a bakery that had been recommended to us we wandered across the street to the grounds of this famous and imposing cathedral. We began in the sculpture building next to the church, and this photograph was made from that general area, taking advantage of the soft and diffused light of this overcast day.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Brooklyn Bridge Cables, Lower East Side Buildings

September 10, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Buildings of the lower east side of Manhattan, seen through the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.

My son kept suggesting a walk across – or at least on to – the Brooklyn Bridge, so when the weather finally cleared up on our last full day in New York City and we found ourselves wandering around Lower Manhattan near the entrance to the pedestrian walkway across the bridge, we really had no choice.

It is hard – perhaps impossible? – to make a truly new photograph of the bridge, at least for this first time photographer of this New York icon. I do have a few frames of the masses of cables ascending to the tower closest to Manhattan, a scene we’ve all seen before, and I probably won’t be able to resist posting at least one of them eventually

I have no idea whether or not a shot like this one is familiar to those who have seen more photos of the bridge than I have, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is a typical view. In any case, I was fascinated by the dense web of cables, the fact that they are much thinner than bridge cables that I’m familiar with, and the appearance of the many buildings along the east short of Manhattan Island both north and south of the bridge.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: New York City, Photographs: Night, Photographs: People, Photographs: Urban/Street

Ice Cream Man in His Truck, New York City

September 8, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A mobile ice-cream vendor parked in his truck at night near Madison Square Garden on 7th Avenue in New York City.

The street vendors are certainly a part of the glorious sensory assault that is Manhattan, at least for this California visitor. They are everywhere, and they range from the generic hotdog/pretzel vendors, through folks who look like they bought a few cases of water and decided to sell them, to some that seem almost gourmet. Two small stories… I didn’t make a photograph, but when we were in lower Manhattan in the financial district we saw a line-up of perhaps a dozen mobile food carts around one small square selling a wide range of foods. While the lines at most of them included a person or two… one stand had a line stretching all the way across the square. Second story – which I’ll tell on myself: One morning we wanted to grab a pretzel. In the process I quickly forgot one of the first rules of buying from these guys, namely settle the price before getting the food. A NYC pretzel ought to cost perhaps a couple bucks, but I managed to double the price by asking for the “goods” first, taking them from the vendor, and only then asking for the price. Let’s just say he gave me the “tourist special price,” and I didn’t feel like enough of a jerk to hand them back to him over the price. :-)

This truck was parked at a corner on 7th Avenue almost across the street from Madison Square Garden, and seemed to be doing a good business during the twilight hour on this evening.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Music & Musicians, Photographs: New York City, Photographs: People

Photographs from “Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required”

September 5, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

This is definitely not landscape photography.

One of the things on my agenda when we spent a week in New York City last month was photographing “Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required,” an unusual event based on Mozart’s opera. Over the course of four evenings at the Gershwin Hotel in Manhattan, a group of singers and instrumentalists and others revealed much that might otherwise not be apparent the opera by “assembling” a portion of the opera each night. The outline of the event was that each evening would begin with an informal rehearsal of a section of the opera, interspersed with commentary from participants, and then conclude with a straight-through reading of the section that had been rehearsed. Beyond that, many of those participating also “took it online” during the event, tweeting and blogging as it took place. (My wife played principal oboe in the orchestra, and I have to tell you it was very strange to get text messages from her during the “show!”)

Photographing the event presented some interesting opportunities along with some challenges. The challenges were mostly what you might expect – concert venues, especially during a “rehearsal” are often not lit with photography in mind, and the space in the Gershwin Hotel where this took place was a virtual nightmare of photographic problems. The walls are bright red! The lighting was very low. There were columns in the middle of the orchestra. All in a day’s work, right? (I mostly shot natural light, and was very glad to have a 135mm f/2 lens and a Canon 5D2 which produces quite decent images at ISO 3200.) The opportunities, however, were worth the challenges. For one, unlike an actual performance at which the noise of a camera is simply unacceptable and, in addition, one needs to be virtually invisible, because this was an informal event I was not only able to shoot as the performance took place, but I was also able to wander around more or less at will. And while performers can often be quite skittish about being photographed during a performance – it creates an unwelcome distraction for them – these performers were very relaxed about it and even seemed to want to be photographed.

I exposed hundreds of frames during the two nights I was there, and I’m only now finding the time to sort through them. I will almost certainly not post all of the photographs here individually, as I would do with a lot of my other work, but (below the “jump”) I will collect many of them in this post. Note that this work is ongoing – I’m starting with an initial set of ten photographs, but others will be added as I update this post later. Continue reading Photographs from “Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required” →

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